


Together, Or Not At All

by Exdasho



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canonical Character Death, One Shot, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 12:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/639060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exdasho/pseuds/Exdasho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Battle of the Five Armies had ended in a victory that cost the dwarves of Erebor and the line of Durin much too dearly; yet Balin, along with what remains of their company, finds comfort in words they never thought they'd one day utter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together, Or Not At All

**Author's Note:**

> I deal with Durin!feels by writing sad fic that makes me more sad. ;____; Not slash, but Thorin/Fili/Kili if you squint. Follows the movie more than the book, and written mainly from Balin's POV.

**Together, Or Not At All**

 

"At least…."

 

The simple two words feel only half-right and almost traitorous as they emerge, choked and barely audible, from Balin. He's not so sure anymore.

 

Behind him, what remains of Thorin's company and the dwarf army from the Iron Hills stand congregated, a dark huddle of indistinguishable beards and limbs still bedraggled in the aftermath of battle. As the last echoes of his yet unfinished speech die out, reverberations contained by the cavernous dungeon in which they stand, the soft crackles of their torches return once more to fill the vast space, interrupted only by an occasional scrape of dented armor. Countless beady eyes remain fixed in Balin's direction, but not at him; for before him, elevated on a dais of the same dark marble from which Erebor was built, lies the source of their grief.

 

Firelight casts a strange hue across the inky tombs, a warm flicker of almost-gold on dark green. Five in total lying in adjacence, huge, and built as stoically as the dwarves themselves. Even with Balin standing up on the dais, they seem to loom over all those in their presence, exuding a solemn gravity. From his left, two of them sit freshly sealed, yet empty. On the surface of the dark stone slabs that had been placed over these, dwarvish runes lie carved with fierce precision, still surrounded by debris from steel scraping across the smooth surface.

 

**Thrór**

**Son of Dáin**

**King Under The Mountain**

 

And, on the one next to it:

 

**Thráin II**

**Son of Thrór**

**King of Durin's Folk**

 

To say that these first two tombs had been sealed empty is not entirely correct, for in their spacious depths, its radiance now forever enveloped in darkness, lie two halves of the Arkenstone. Split neatly down the middle with a mighty blow from one of Dwalin's axes, one half placed in each tomb; a light to guide back home the two heirs of Durin who did not live to see their kingdom reclaimed. Though unable to retrieve their bodies, the dwarves had unanimously agreed to go through with the proper entombing ceremonials, selflessly sacrificing their precious Arkenstone as a last homage. Even after countless long years following the violent death of Erebor's King and subsequent disappearance of his son (later found to have perished also), the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain still seethe with a tireless fury for their leaders' fates. Robbed of home and gold, forced to scrape a living among strangers, slain at the hands of orcs, and robbed even of the privilege of being laid to rest where they belonged, the memory of Thrór and Thráin would always remain a bitter and unhealed wound in the dwarves' prideful hearts. 

 

Balin's lined hands curl into shaking fists as an image flits across his mind, as it had done so often in dreams from which he would awake in a cold sweat. King Thrór's severed head, held up by its silver mane that once lay in proud braids; Azog's gnarled hand gripping it as he sneered in mirth, dark rivers of red running down the defiler's pale skin. As the orc made to throw it, Balin remembers shutting his eyes in horror, yet remaining helpless to block out the sickening thud as their king's head hit the ground and rolled. No dwarf who survived the Battle of Azanulbizar that day could forget the wretched wail that had come then from Thorin, and how the tides of that battle turned in their favor only under the worst possible circumstances. 

 

Now, as Balin finds himself standing alive once more in the wake of a victory that had cost them much too dearly, he fears that his old heart might give way. He opens his mouth, attempting yet again to gather himself and utter the last lines of his speech.

 

"At…at least–" 

 

His eyes fall unbidden onto the third grave, still unsealed, and all his efforts are once again for naught because Thorin… _Oh, Thorin._

The dwarf prince, until only a while ago their new king, looks uncharacteristically small and fragile as he lies silent in the lavishly lined tomb. On a bed of thick furs, fingers crossed upon his chest, he could very nearly pass for one that was merely sleeping if not for the heavy layers of clothing and armor still worn. Balin, along with a few others in their company who had been among the first few to rush to their fallen King's side, knows only too well of the terrible sight that the layers serve to hide. Goblin weapons are not known for their craftsmanship, and the crude wounds that had rent Thorin were too ghastly to leave uncovered. They had, amidst their crippling sorrow, clothed him as well as they could in the garments he formerly wore during their quest to reclaim Erebor, which had grown to become a reassuring sight for them. Yet the additional band of leather now wrapped around Thorin's throat still stands out as unfamiliar, as if taunting them with the still-fresh memory of the unspeakable damage underneath it. Balin's voice cracks and gives way to a wracking sob as a new tear carves a path down his dirt-streaked face, coming to a suspended rest in his beard along with its kin.

 

_Oh, how Kili had screamed then._

_\---_

 

Alerted only by the hoarse cry of the younger nephew, too late Balin had turned to see Thorin already falling to his knees, mouth open in shock, eyes still burning with the rage of battle. In that fraction of a second it was all too much for the old dwarf to bear. Unable to fight off the enemies surrounding him long enough to reach Thorin, he could only watch, helpless, as history repeats itself before his eyes. Only this time, it was Kili whose scream of rage followed the fall of their king. Balin recalls seeing a faint blur of blue emerging from the chaos, followed by an arrow burying itself into the chest of the goblin who had slit Thorin's throat from behind. Just before the King hit the ground Kili had caught him, and Balin, still straining to get to them, got a clear enough view to catch Thorin looking up at his nephew with wild eyes. On the ground, with Thorin in his lap, Kili had let out a desperate shriek for Fili all while slashing wildly at the enemies' legs, reduced in that instant to no more than a frightened child. Balin remembers thinking then, that it was going to be alright, that Thorin was at the very least still alive and Fili and Kili together could get him to safety, because sharp-eared Fili had already come running upon hearing his brother. And then Balin had looked again only to see Thorin's head lolling back in Kili's arms, a dark and ugly gash opened up in his neck and bubbling red, and he realized just how wrong he had been. Until the end of his days that moment would haunt him, bring bile up in his throat whenever he recalled just how quickly it had all been over. 

 

Fili, cleaving his way through enemy hoards at a flat run. Fili, eyes widening as Kili's sword is ripped from him. The dull crunch as a goblin's mace slams into Kili's ribs, even as the younger brother scrabbles to reach his knife. Fili standing over the motionless forms of his uncle and brother, a sword in each hand, a roar of rage escaping from him. Having to look away to fight off another wave of goblins, and looking back only to see Fili still standing. Propped up, with a sharp spearpoint emerging from his chest. 

 

Balin doesn't care to recall in detail how the battle was won, because the line of Durin had been ended in that short, brutal moment; snuffed out as easily as white-hot steel in water, and nothing that followed in the remaining years of peace could serve to fully heal the hurt it left in his old heart.

 

\---

 

He lifts his wearied eyes to the last two tombs before them. They were different from those before them, for they had been pushed together to lie flush. The sides in the middle had been knocked down, and within this expanded space, the last two, and youngest, of Durin's line and the rightful heirs of Erebor's throne lie side-by-side. Like Thorin, they too were clothed in their outfits worn during the quest. Ori, unharmed save for a broken leg, had even managed to re-braid their hair, replacing the matching silver hair clasps that Fili and Kili's mother Dís had given to them, even as the young dwarf's own shoulders shook with the effort of holding back tears. Moments after they had been laid together into the joined tomb, Bifur had unexpectedly stepped up onto the Dais and, without a word, taken one of each of the brothers' hands and laid them across each other. 

 

Balin takes a deep breath, trying to steady himself. He knows the last thing he wants to say, and he knows how he wants to say it; it's just that there's something vaguely strange about the wording, and he pauses to contemplate if he should be concerned that it would be misunderstood. Of course, the truth is that he needn't have worried at all. For in all the years and ages that follow, long after the final three tombs have been sealed, as Erebor, under the rule of King Dáin, is rebuilt to stand in her former glory once more, as the story of Durin's heirs continue to live on through stories passed from one generation to the next, and as all those who fell in the Battle of the Five Armies continue to be honored and remembered, there never lived a single dwarf who did not understand the last words uttered by Balin as he stood before the five tombs that day. And out of those few who had journeyed with Thorin over the Misty Mountains, Gandalf and Bilbo included, not one of them hadn't seen for themselves the truth behind these words. For they had seen the way Thorin smiles at his nephews, the way they try so hard to walk and talk like him, heard the way Fili and Kili complete each other's sentences and how they appear to others as one being rather than two brothers. With Balin's simple words, even amidst the heartache they could say that at least one more hurt had been averted, because at least…

 

_**"At least, even though they now leave us, they leave together; and at least, not one of them would have to live his life without another. May it be, from now 'till this mountain falls; let it be together, or not at all."** _

**-END-**


End file.
